Invention:

A radically different approach to fabrication of compact radio frequency (RF) antennas and devices using non-traditional polymer-based materials, enabling improved performance and increased functionality for various emerging wireless communication and sensor devices. The relentless pursuit of device miniaturization for such systems often comes at the price of compromised performance. One of the biggest obstacles to further miniaturization of RF wireless devices is the antenna structure, which accounts for a large portion of the total size. Despite the superior properties of DRAs, they have not been widely adopted for commercial wireless applications due to complex and costly fabrication processes related to their three dimensional structure and difficulties in shaping the hard ceramic material. The new approach described in this invention to facilitate the adoption of DRAs for commercial applications is to use polymer-based materials (so-called polymer resonator antennas - PRAs). The premise of the approach was two-fold: 1) the natural softness of polymers could dramatically simplify fabrication of dielectric elements, enabling for instance the use of lithographic batch fabrication or other 3D printing or micromachining processes; 2) the elements must be effectively excited to resonate and radiate at microwave and millimeter-wave frequencies.

This invention utilizes composite materials with varying permittivity values. In a broad aspect, this invention is based upon various composite materials with dielectric properties for use in microwave applications, whereby the composite material comprises a filler with relative permittivity of at least 4, and a polymer constituent, wherein the composite material has a relative permittivity of at least 3 for microwave frequencies. In some embodiments, the filler comprises a ceramic constituent.

Applications:

Some of the markets identified for this technology are:

1. Unmanned Vehicle Systems
2. Satellite Communications
3. Collision Avoidance Systems
4. RFID Systems
5. Telemetry, Tracking and Command
6. Energy Weapon System
7. Remote Sensing
8. Body Scan Applications
9. Wireless Communications
10. Industrial Applications

Advantages over existing Technology:

The natural softness of polymers and other composite materials will dramatically simplify fabrication and their low relative permittivity will further enhance the impedance bandwidth of the DRAs. Our new PRAs can further reduce the size of conventional DRAs by up to 50%, and enable modes offering additional control over bandwidth and frequency response. One of the advantages of PRAs is that numerous polymer types with special characteristics can be used to fulfill the requirements of particular applications or achieve extraordinary benefits.

Principal Inventors:

Dr. David Klymyshyn

Professor  & Graduate Chair
Dept. of Electrical & Chemical Engineering

Matt Tayfeh

PhD Candidate

Dept. Electrical & Chemical Engineering

Patent Status:

PCT - Polymer Resonator Antenna.   Filed 3 July 2014

Contact:

Raj Nayak

Technology Transfer - ICT

Tel: (306) 966-5875

raj.nayak@usask.ca

Invention:

The invention describes a radically different approach to fabrication of compact radio frequency (RF) antennas and devices using non-traditional polymer-based materials, enabling improved performance and increased functionality for various emerging wireless communication and sensor devices. The relentless pursuit of device miniaturization for such systems often comes at the price of compromised performance. One of the biggest obstacles to further miniaturization of RF wireless devices is the antenna structure, which accounts for a large portion of the total size. Recently, ceramic-based dielectric resonator antennas (DRAs) have attracted increased attention for miniaturized wireless and sensor applications at microwave and millimeter-wave frequencies. DRAs are three dimensional structures with lateral dimensions that can be several times smaller than traditional antennas, and offer superior performance. Despite the superior properties of DRAs, they have not been widely adopted for commercial wireless applications due to complex and costly fabrication processes related to their three dimensional structure and difficulties in shaping the hard ceramic material. The new approach described in this invention to facilitate the adoption of DRAs for commercial applications is to use polymer-based materials (so-called polymer resonator antennas - PRAs). The premise of the approach was two-fold: 1) the natural softness of polymers could dramatically simplify fabrication of dielectric elements, enabling for instance the use of lithographic batch fabrication or other 3D printing or micromachining processes; 2) the elements must be effectively excited to resonate and radiate at microwave and millimeter-wave frequencies.

Applications:

The invention describes a radically different approach to fabrication of compact radio frequency (RF) antennas and devices using non- traditional polymer-based materials, enabling improved performance and increased functionality for various emerging wireless communication devices (including miniature radios/transmitters, personal/ wearable/ embedded wireless devices, etc.), automotive radar systems, small satellites, RF identification (RFIO), sensors and sensor array networks, and bio-compatible wireless devices and biosensors.

Advantages over existing technology:

A new approach to facilitate the adoption of DRAs for commercial applications is to use polymer-based materials. The natural softness of polymers will dramatically simplify fabrication and their low relative permittivity will further enhance the impedance bandwidth of the DRAs. Through the incorporation of tall vertical embedded metal feed structures, our new PRAs can further reduce the size of conventional DRAs by up to 50%, and enable modes offering additional control over bandwidth and frequency response. One of the advantages of PRAs is that numerous polymer types with special characteristics can be used to fulfill the requirements of particular applications or achieve extraordinary benefits.

Principal Inventors:

Dr. David Klymyshyn

Professor  & Graduate Chair
Dept. of Electrical & Chemical Engineering

Matt Tayfeh

PhD Candidate

Dept. Electrical & Chemical Engineering

Contact:

Download full technology summary

Invention:

This invention provides an efficient framework to represent, acquire, and recover signals in seismocardiogram (SCG) systems, based on the theory of compressed sensing. The target market applications include mainly the health care industry, with possible extensions to security and biometric systems. Currently, the competing technology is the electrocardiogram (ECG). However, the SCG has been shown to provide a wider range of disease detection capabilities compared to the ECG.

The seismocardiogram (SCG) measures the acceleration generated by the mechanical contraction and relaxation activities of the heart. It has been demonstrated to facilitate accurate identification of various coronary artery diseases. However, applications involving SCG are severely hampered by the large amount of data to be processed, preventing real-time monitoring and detection of diseases. This challenge is exacerbated in the case of tri-axial SCG, with the increase in data collected. Addressing this challenge, sparse representation and compressed sensing (CS) represent a promising framework to potentially capture and represent signals significantly below the Nyquist rate. To this end, this invention explores the possibility of using CS with SCG systems, by proposing suitable signal processing algorithms, and evaluating these methods with experimental data. The obtained results demonstrate significant reduction in bandwidth, while maintaining accurate signal recovery.

Applications:

Preliminary research has proved that the following cardiac states can also be detected by seismocardiogram in its early stages as compared to electrocardiogram.

1. Coronary  Artery disease
2. Sports   Medical   (serial   testing,   systolic   performance,   diastolic   performance,   mitral   valve   prolapse, hypertrophic  cardiomyopathy)
3. Ischemic  Heart  Diseases (IHD) 
4. Sinus Arrhythmia:  Tachycardia,  bradycardia 
5. Nonsinus  Arrhythmia:  ventricular  & atrial flutter/fibrillation Hypertension 

Advantages over existing technology:

In this work, a Compressed Sensing-based scheme is proposed to efficiently reduce the bandwidth necessary to process tri-axial SCG signals. The obtained results show that it is possible to achieve at least a 1/3-compression ratio, while still maintaining accurate recovery (quantified by a worst-case PSNR=36.9852 dB, based on preliminary experimental data collected for a group of 10 subjects). Furthermore, the scheme does not require stringent preprocessing. In fact, the segmentation can be performed coarsely, by a windowing scheme that takes into account a complete heartbeat. These properties should facilitate practical implementations of the proposed scheme in a wide range of application scenarios involving SCG signals.

Principal Inventors:

Dr. Francis Bui

Professor
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering

Zexi Yu

PhD Candidate

Dept. Electrical & Computer Engineering

Patent Status:

61/987709 US Provisional – Filed May 02, 2015

Contact:

Raj Nayak

Technology Transfer - ICT

Tel: (306) 966-5875

Email: raj.nayak@usask.ca

The invention uses the state-plane representation of the generator speed and the power angle to find out-of-step instability in power systems (loss of synchronism).  

The proposed state plane approach is much faster than all the methods currently available with the relay manufacturers.